MANILA, Philippines — A massive crowd of mostly barefoot Catholic worshippers marched Tuesday in an annual procession in the Philippines’ capital that paraded a centuries-old black statue of Jesus. Many said they prayed for peace in the Middle East, where tens of thousands of Filipinos work, as fears rise of a spread of the Israel-Hamas war, now in its fourth month.
Considered a major annual Catholic event in Asia, the procession was cancelled during the coronavirus pandemic and last year, after pandemic restrictions eased, the statue was not paraded to discourage larger crowds.
The procession on Tuesday took 15 hours and the crowd of devotees — many in maroon shirts imprinted with the image of the Black Nazarene — at one point swelled to more than 2 million, according to a police estimate.
Red Cross volunteers treated more than 360 worshipers, mainly for bruises, but at least five were hospitalized, including one who sustained head injuries when he fell to the ground while attempting to climb onto the carriage carrying the statue.
Police were on high alert during the event in Manila’s Quiapo district, following a Dec. 3 bombing that killed four people and wounded dozens of Catholic worshippers attending Mass at a university in the southern Philippines. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. blamed “foreign terrorists” for the attack, which sparked a security alarm.
Thousands of police and plainclothes officers were deployed, along with drone surveillance and commandos positioned on rooftops along the route of the procession. Many nearby roads were closed off, cell phone signals were blocked and people were banned from carrying backpacks other than clear ones, as well as umbrellas and from wearing caps.
The procession typically draws massive numbers of largely poor Catholics who pray for the sick and a better life.
Devotees grab the rope as they pull the glass-covered cart carrying Black Nazarene during its annual procession which was resumed after a…
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